Assessing social competence and antisocial behaviors in children: item response theory analysis of the home and community social behavior scales.

Background: The Home and Community Social Behavior Scales (HCSBS) is a rating scale that assesses social competence and antisocial behavior among children and youths between ages 5-18. The present study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the HCSBS by applying item response theory (IRT).

Methods: The HCSBS was completed by parents of 551 Norwegian children refereed to three independent interventions towards problem behaviors.

An examination of validity and reliability of the Parental Stress Scale in a population based sample of Norwegian parents.

The parental stress scale (PSS) is a widely used instrument that assesses stress related to child rearing. Even though several studies have investigated the construct validity and reliability of the PSS, no consensus has been reached regarding which and how many of the original eighteen items that should be included, or a robust factor structure with satisfactory reliability. The present study tested the psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the PSS and used the advantages of complementary exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to investigate the underlying factor structure of the PSS items.

Latent interaction effects in the theory of planned behaviour applied to quitting smoking.

Objectives: This study applies three latent interaction models in the theory of planned behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1988, Attitudes, personality, and behavior. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press; Ajzen, 1991, Organ. Behav.

Using the Prototype/Willingness model to predict smoking behaviour among Norwegian adolescents.

This paper examines cognitive antecedents of non-smoking among adolescents who reported smoking less than 1-2 times a week, and reported non-smoking intentions and willingness, in the framework of the Prototype/Willingness model. Two waves of data were obtained from a nation-wide sample of 760 Norwegian adolescents who responded to a school-based survey on smoking. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the predictive power of the social reaction pathway (prototype and willingness) of the P/W model, and in addition, the constructs from the Theory of Reasoned Action (subjective norm, attitude and intention).